“Shachihoko” is an ornament on a roof of main building of a castle. “Shachi” is an imaginary creature. It’s head is head of tiger or dragon and it’s body is fish’s body with fish scales. “Shachihoko” is warping back toward sky. “Hoko” means a long-handled Chinese spear and a tale of “Shachihoko” looks like it. It is told that “Shachihoko” spits out water when the building catches fire, and then stops fires burning. This is why “Shachihoko” is put on a roof. A pair of “Shachihoko” is male and female.
Gold “Shachihoko” is a symbol of Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture. In 1612, when the mail building of Nagoya Castle was built, a pair of the gold “Shachihoko” were made to let them show power of Ieyasu Tokugawa who is the 1st “Shogun” of Tokugawa government and power of Owari Tokugawa Family. People said that there is no fish in the sea in front of Nagoya because of brightness of the gold “Shachihoko”. The height of the male gold “Shachihoko” with 194 scales was about 2.57m and the height of female with 236 scales was about 2.51m. 215.3kg of gold was used for those. The amount is calculated as about US$14 millions. Wow!
Unfortunately, during the Wold War II, the Nagoya Castle with gold “Shachihoko” was burnt down by air raids on Nagoya. The current pair of the gold “Shichihoko” is the 2nd ones.
Luckly, in April 2021, both gold “Shachihoko” came down on the ground and we could see them nearby. Please see the photo.
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